fiction is lying.

Nintendo America didn’t release Super Mario Bros. 2 in the United States because they didn’t think people would buy a game that looked just like the original, and they thought it was too hard (which it is, unless compared to the second half of the first game). Eventually it came along as the Lost Levels in Mario All-Stars, but was it ever really much more than just a damned sequel? Instead, this acid trip got made into a Mario game:

Familiar music (glad they beefed it up for us)? Assuming the lost levels thing isn’t entirely bullshit hearsay, there are a few problems with either the myth or the actual decision Nintendo made.

If you look at other Nintendo Entertainment System series, you see that sequels became a commonplace way to get more games out, and in many cases just make some cash for garbage. But those sequels generally had a few things in common.

1. They sold.
2. They looked very, very similar to their predecessors: Mega Man, Double Dragon, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, Metroid, Dragon Warrior, Adventure Island, etc.
3. They were almost never an entirely different Japanese game in disguise with very few changes.
4. They always warranted unneeded items on lists, or even unneeded lists.

Mario’s a weirdo all because they decided to make his first sequel another goddamn game in disguise.

One of the few major exceptions to this rule, which also follows the “logic” behind the Mario Bro decision, is Zelda. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, looked very little like its predecessor, but maintained Zelda continuity traditions that continue today. Zelda II was, however, insanely difficult.

Zelda stories are like a comic book over the years. The stories come from different places and do different things. Link is a bunch of different dudes. Mario’s just one guy. It seems now that he hasn’t changed at all since Super Mario Bros. 3. Instead, the game engines that drew him did. He’s a brutally minimal example of technological evolution, as are the worlds he lands in. Mario is video games.